Saturday, November 19, 2011

Weather You Believe It Or Not


9:20 a.m. update:
Thanks to a regular emailer for this link to a story about the '91 Dartmouth-Princeton game. Scan down toward the bottom.


(That headline is supposed to be a play on words ;-)

On Nov. 12, 1927 Dartmouth closed out a 7-1 season with a 53-7 win over Cornell on Memorial Field.

It would be 64 years and 11 days until the Big Green finished another campaign at home and Dartmouth did it in style, knocking off Princeton, 31-13, on Nov. 23, 1991. That win, by the way, clinched a second consecutive Ivy League championship for the Big Green in the final game of Buddy Teevens' first stint as head coach at his alma mater.

The long-held belief after 1927 was that it was just too darn cold in Hanover to play football at this time of year.

That belief finally changed for the 1991 season when Dartmouth closed the season with the home win against Princeton. The Big Green has been finishing the season at home every other year since then.

Today's forecast? Not so fast, my friend. First, a look at the mean temperature for each season finale at Memorial Field since the schedule was reconfigured (courtesy of Weather Underground):

1991 - 47 degrees
1993 - 35 degrees
1995 - 30 degrees
1997 - 42 degrees
1999 - 48 degrees
2001 - 32 degrees
2003 - 38 degrees
2005 - 28 degrees
2007 - 29 degrees
2009 - 44 degrees

And the forecast for kickoff today is . . . 47 degrees and sunny.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, for the last home game before it was deemed too cold to finish the season in Hanover it was . . . wait for it . . . 50 degrees in 1927. (For those of you who would point out that the 1927 season ended a week earlier than this season ends, the temperature on this date in 1927 was 30 degrees.)

The Indianapolis Star has a nice story about senior safety Joey Casey, who has come about as far in his career as anyone in recent memory and should have a good shot at making the All-Ivy League team when it is announced.

No comments: